


Somewhere Better

by Mango_Dolphin



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Background Character Death, Drabble, Flash Fic, Flash Fiction, Gen, One Shot, POV First Person, Photography, Short One Shot, nothing's really described it's just hand-waved, there's also a lot of hoppip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 18:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18816892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mango_Dolphin/pseuds/Mango_Dolphin
Summary: When life's got you low, the answer might be in the past.





	Somewhere Better

**Author's Note:**

> Initially written September 3rd, 2018 as a writing prompt. Decided to archive it just to put it somewhere more convenient!

I've loved Hoppip longer than I can remember. Nestled tightly in blankets during the nippy early spring, I spent many of my formative years clinging to windows, watching pink gusts of them meander the rolling fields outside of my grandmother's house. As I got older, I'd abandon the windows and take to the fields instead. I wanted to see them, the pink dandelions that painted my world. And so, my grandmother would equip me with a camera and push me outside in a light jacket.  
  
It was there I learned my passion for wildlife photography. It's one thing to see phenomena while separated by the barriers of a screen or a window, but it's a completely different story getting to see them up close, only separated by air and distance. I remember the first time a Hoppip approached me: by god, I was so excited I almost screamed! It graced the blades of grass around me, and examined the lens of my camera with a beady eye. I didn’t want to scare it away, and it took my rigid form as an opportunity, crawling all over me and messing with the drawstring of my jacket. With a purr, it climbed onto my head and hopped back into the breeze, their tail only mildly upsetting my hair. It was then I let go of my breath. I turned my head to see it drift away, staring at me with a smile. I could swear that its tail was bobbing with a purpose. It wanted me to follow.

 

My grandmother, bless her poor soul, always entertained my fantasies of that certain Hoppip, reaffirming to my young mind that there truly _was_ something more about that encounter. “Maybe it wanted to lead you away to somewhere magical,” she mused, “a land few humans get to go to.”

 

And of course, I believed her. Every spring I would go out to that field, camera or not, to reenact that experience. But while a select few Hoppip would do something similar again, it wouldn’t be with the same purpose. It wasn’t the same Hoppip. Of course, it couldn’t be; they weren’t too concerned about me, only satiating their curiosity. That first Hoppip had a mission, one it didn’t fulfill at first. As a child, I wanted to help it complete that magical mission.

 

As time went on, I started to equate ‘magical’ with ‘better.’ I started to get sick of the life I was living in, one where my sole caretaker started to become the person I had to take care of, one where I lived too far away from everyone else, one where I felt trapped in my own home of a villa and countless miles of grass. I wanted to get out of this place. I wanted to be taken away to somewhere better, somewhere with magic and love and happiness. It seemed a good enough fantasy.

 

But people grow up. People change, they die, they move away. I got older. Grandmother passed away some months after I graduated college, and her villa was bought by a vacation home company. I put myself into finding work—both in keeping myself afloat and furthering my career—to ignore the grief. And I’d get what I wanted: I forgot about my old life, my loneliness, my grief. Somewhere along the way, I forgot about the Hoppip too. I hadn’t gone home in years.

 

A friend had reminded me of home not too long ago. “I think it’d be a proper way to process your grief,” she told me. “Then you can live your life unburdened, for the most part.”

 

So here I am, March 7th, standing in a field’s still-thawing grass and flowers. It’s larger than I remember, and the horizon goes on and on.

 

So do the Hoppip.

 

When I was a child, I got bored after an hour or two and went back inside while the Hoppip gust floated on. But actually working as a wildlife photographer teaches you the virtue of patience. Needless to say, I’ve been watching pink tumbleweed cats soar through the sky since noon, and it’s near sunset now. No Hoppip has come down to say hi, though plenty have flown over my head. No Hoppip except that last straggler, floating slowly, behind the rest of the group.

 

Against my better judgement, I’m willed to stand up and meet the Hoppip halfway. As a consequence, it tumbles into my face and grips onto it for dear life. And, honestly, that’s what I get for being impatient. By the time it calms down and settles into my arms, my face is torn up and scratched. Not bleeding, thankfully, but it feels like it might at any second. The Hoppip was just as injured as it ran into me, its leaves ragged and its tail disheveled.

 

“C’mon, little guy.” I carefully kneel down and, while holding the Hoppip in the crook of my arm, I pull out a potion from my satchel with my free hand. After healing it up, it wriggles with a smile and climbs up to my shoulder. Brushing against my neck, it leapt into the wind again.

 

I watch as its leaves pick up the wind. I watch as an updraft pushes it up. A gust of wind penetrates through my jacket and whistles in my ear.

 

‘ _Don’t you want to follow?_ ’

 

I rub my eyes. The pink speck still hasn’t joined the rest of the Hoppip mass. It’s not going anywhere. I glance behind myself, and greeted with only more field and orange sun, I turn back to face that Hoppip. When I call back out, I can’t help but feel like an outsider might call me insane.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

The wind is starting to pick up.

 

‘ _Somewhere better._ ’

 

I wait, the wind throwing my hair into my face, not quite tearing me away from the ground yet. The Hoppip is waiting for me. I’m compelled to follow, but I can’t help but keep my feet pinned to the ground. Finally, I shout, “Can I come back?”

 

The next gust nearly topples me over, but calms to a near standstill. ‘ _Come back to what? All you have left is dead weight._ ’

 

I grip my bag tight, but not once do I look away.

 

I put it down.

 

I follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I may create more flash fiction for the Pokemon fandom in the future, but sadly I don't plan on making a sequel to this. It ended the way I wanted to the moment I began writing, so no need to append it.


End file.
